{"id":21470,"date":"2021-06-09T14:54:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishaction.com\/?p=21470"},"modified":"2021-06-14T16:38:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T16:38:25","slug":"mashgiach-on-the-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishaction.com\/food\/kashrut\/mashgiach-on-the-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Mashgiach on the Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rabbi Yisroel Hollander supervising a Pesach run of Slivovitz at Rudolf Jelinek in the Czech Republic. Courtesy of Rudolf Jelinek<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

On an ordinary week, Rabbi Yisroel Hollander, who lives in Antwerp, Belgium, finds himself taking between four and six flights throughout Europe; he also averages about 50,000 miles annually on his car.<\/p>\n

Such intense traveling is not unusual in Rabbi Hollander\u2019s profession. As OU Kosher\u2019s senior rabbinical representative of Europe, Rabbi Hollander, who has been working for the organization for twenty-five years and speaks six languages, supervises the majority of OU-certified companies in Europe, including Eastern Europe. \u201cI am always moving from place to place,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Covid, however, has made his usually hectic schedule seem almost relaxing. One week this past March, Rabbi Hollander\u2019s itinerary was dizzying: On Tuesday\u2014Poland, Wednesday\u2014Italy, Thursday\u2014Portugal.\u00a0But while trying to plan the itinerary some weeks before the trip, the British-born rabbi, <\/strong>who must take a weekly Covid test in order to pass airport security, realized he had a problem: there were no evening flights. \u201cBefore Covid, I had the pick of flights,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cSince Covid, I can\u2019t plan more than a day in advance.\u201d To make matters worse, because so many initial inspections of plants had been delayed due to the virus, there was a significant backlog. (An initial inspection takes place when a plant that has never been certified kosher gets a comprehensive review, an intense process that takes hours.)<\/p>\n

One of the hallmarks of an effective\u00a0mashgiach<\/em>\u00a0is flexibility. Early the next morning, Rabbi Hollander flew to Prague, then drove five hours to Poland to visit a granola company. With no flights available, he decided to drive to Italy, over 1,000 miles away. \u201cI\u2019m on the continent,\u201d he said. \u201cI can drive everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

He left Poland at 11:30 in the morning, driving through snow and getting stopped at three country borders (Germany, Austria and Italy) along the way, before arriving at his hotel in Italy at 10:30 pm. After visiting an Italian chocolate company the following morning, Rabbi Hollander was on his way once again, driving five hours to the airport in Munich, where he caught a flight to Madrid. \u201cYesterday I didn\u2019t know how I was getting from point A to point B,\u201d he says. He slept over in Madrid and flew to Portugal the next morning. \u201cEvery week,\u00a0my wife used to ask me what my schedule is for the week\u2014which countries I\u2019ll be visiting,\u201d says the rabbi. \u201cI used to know the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More in this section:<\/h3>\n

Keeping in Kosher in the Age of Corona <\/strong>by Merri Ukraincik<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Putting Hand Sanitizer Within Reach<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Quarantining in a Crunch <\/strong>by Rabbi Eli Eleff<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Stuck in Samoa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet the OU’s Senior Rabbinical Representative of Europe <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashrut","issues-summer-20215781"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMashgiach on the Go - Jewish Action<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Meet the OU's Senior Rabbinical Representative of Europe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jewishaction.com\/food\/kashrut\/mashgiach-on-the-go\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mashgiach on the Go - 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